The world inside the mainframe room was coming apart at the seams.
Alarms blared, a discordant symphony of pure, electronic panic.
Red emergency lights strobed, painting the chaos in frantic, pulsing strokes of crimson and shadow.
The Arcana Virus was a thing of beautiful, terrifying vengeance.
Sparks rained down from the ceiling as power conduits overloaded.
Automated fire suppression systems activated, dousing one half of the room in a thick, choking foam while the other half was inexplicably blasted with freezing cold air from the ventilation system.
It was a rave in a collapsing computer.
And they were the guests of honor.
Kael stood in the center of it all, his perfected armor flickering, his energy blade sputtering as the virus tore through his own systems.
He was screaming into his comms, a string of furious, unheard orders.
He was distracted.
This was their chance.
"Thorne!" Jinx yelled over the din. "Is there a back door to this nightmare?"
